The present invention relates generally to the adjustment of a seat and, more particularly, to a system and method for adjusting a seat used on commercial airplanes and the like, where the system and method utilize biometric information of each one of a plurality of people to adjust the seat to make it relatively more ergonomically efficient and comfortable for each person sitting in the seat.
There exist situations where a person must sit for an extended period of time in a seat that has less than optimum or undesirable ergonomic capability and/or efficiency and comfort. An example of this is an airplane seat, which are typically identical to one another in their physical features or components on any given type of aircraft with little variance in these features between different types and manufactures of aircraft. A common airplane seat has a limited number of physical features that are manually adjustable by the user, whether in “coach” or in “first” class. Further, these features have relatively few manual adjustment capabilities. In general, a cross-section of the general population of people who sit in the typical airplane seat vary in their physical characteristics (e.g., height, weight, shape of torso, size and length of arms, legs, etc.) to a greater degree than the corresponding adjustment capabilities of the airplane seat. Nevertheless, a typical airplane passenger can usually find some degree of relative comfort through manual adjustment of the adjustable features of the seat.
The adjustable airplane seat features commonly include the angle of inclination of the seat back, the height, tilt angle and possibly the curvature of the headrest, the positioning of one or more armrests through an approximate ninety-degree angle of rotation, and, if available, the position of a legrest also through an approximate ninety-degree angle of rotation. Oftentimes passengers in these seats fail to take advantage of the adjustment capabilities, for whatever reason. Also, those people that do adjust their seats may not find the most comfortable position. Further, airline regulator rules require that each seat on an airplane be in a certain position during particular times of the flight (e.g., takeoff, landing, during turbulence, etc.). As a result, people sitting in airplane seats for a relatively extended period of time are likely to be or become uncomfortable during or throughout the duration of the flight, particularly those flights lasting a relatively long time. This often makes the passengers in these seats prone to fatigue, emotional distress and physical injury.